


(Someday) I Won't Have to Wait for You

by bisexualtelepath



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work, The Irregulars - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Original Character(s), Other, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, idk why I'm posting this, the gang writes soulmate aus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-09 01:11:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17397224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisexualtelepath/pseuds/bisexualtelepath
Summary: Bree Fateweaver never doubted her soulmates.





	(Someday) I Won't Have to Wait for You

**Author's Note:**

> My friends and I kind of got obsessed with the idea of writing a soulmate au for our party a couple month back. And because they want me to post everything I write, this is here now. If anyone does read it, I hope you enjoy this cute little exploration of a lonely character knowing that they won't always be alone.

Bree never doubted her soulmates. As the years ticked by, other children becoming excited by the script that would come to adorn their skin, Bree was patient. She hadn’t always been so calm. When she was younger and her first peer got their mark at the remarkably young age of four, Bree would spring out of bed at first light to thoroughly examine herself for words. This was common for her kin by circumstance; Bree’s roommates would help her check, and she would do the same for them. People often underestimate the extent that children understand the world around them. Orphans are not blind to their orphanhood. Some, most, worry that they will have no soulmate at all. That even if they do, they will once again bear the weight of being unwanted. 

This was not a concern for Bree. Not since she was six and in a heated fight with Reese, a young human boy who was three years older and a foot taller. Whatever the topic of discussion might have been—a taken toy, a forgotten friendship, an insult turned argument—was forgotten as a young Bree stepped forward and her feet didn’t touch the ground. And all of a sudden, Reese wasn’t looking down at her. Soon enough, he was looking up. 

Magic. Nothing had ever felt so real and tangible and true, not even the air she breathed. It was like she’d turned and noticed her left hand for the first time, because of  _ course _ , magic. What else could it have been? Suddenly, many of life’s stresses were no longer her concern. She stopped checking for a mark so religiously, because she  _ knew  _ one was going to come. She didn’t know if this was intuition or magic, and she didn’t know if there was a difference anymore. There was just this sense that everything would work out. Finally, she had something that she could call hers. Maybe it wasn’t a soulmate, but it was something tangible and real and unquestionably a part of her. Something that, when circumstance got in her way, she could rely on. Something that would help her bend the odds, put the ball in her court. Weave fate. 

(This was, of course, before Bree realized just what she was capable of. Before she lost the ability to speak for the minute that felt like it lasted an hour, before one of the older kids just started floating, before she set fire to the fucking curtains and Bree realized that nothing was ever that simple. But you can’t blame a kid for trying.)

Bree was thirteen when they appeared. She had been trying to shake her bedmate awake for their morning chores, whispering, “Tamlin, c’mon, we gotta get up now,” when she saw a band of words wrapping around her upper right arm. She sucked in a breath. She raised her arm to the window, trying to get a better look, but it was too dim. And the words spiraled around her arm; she couldn’t see all of them. As quietly as possible, Bree disentangled herself from the tangled sheets. She then ran out of the room, nearly tripping on her shoes she so carelessly discarded the night before and slamming the door behind her as she sprinted down the hall and towards Cyrin’s room.

The door opened after only a few seconds of incessant pounding. Cyrin appeared, wearing a nightgown and robe. The older elven woman blinked back the blanket of sleep as she rubbed her eyes, pushing her hair out of her face and slightly revealing dark words that crested just beyond her hairline that Bree could never make out and Cyrin never talked about. Cyrin regarded Bree warily. “Bree? What’s wrong? What—”

Bree stuck out her arm. It took Cyrin a minute to catch up to the situation, but eventually her eyes widened and a soft smile adorned her face. As she looked from Bree’s arm to her face, Cyrin’s eyes widened more, and Bree watched her stifle a laugh. “Oh child,” Cyrin mused, “I should not be surprised.”

A minute later, they were in her study, the morning glow fall shining through the curtains as Bree traced the scrawl of words on her arm. _Those are my words. Some of my words_ _._ It wrapped around her bicep, looping more than once on her small arm. “Soulmarks are a gift,” Cyrin said as she sat across from Bree, and the young halfling glanced towards her. “But not one you are entitled to, and not one you need to accept. Soulmates don’t always—”

“I know, I know,” Bree interjected. She heard the speech many times before, sometimes at her own request. “They don’t have to be romantic, and sometimes people don’t get along with their soulmates, and if they die the words will scar over like Raina’s.” Raina was a half elf girl a year or so older than Bree. Her mark faded into a shadow of itself only months after she’d received it, and she had yet to fully recover.

Cyrin faltered for a moment. “That’s right,” she said. A moment passed. Bree watched as Cyrin steeled herself before pulling up her nightgown slightly. The skin beneath it was pale, so pale that Bree could barely see the outline of scarred script below her knee that read  **_Where do you think you’re going?_ **

Bree blinked. “You have… two soulmates?”

“Had,” Cyrin corrected, covering her leg once again. “She died many years ago, after having lived a full life.” The elf seemed to almost gaze past Bree. “I loved her very much.”

There weren’t many times when Bree was left speechless. She wanted to cry. Rather than stumble over words, she reached forward and took Cyrin’s hand. They held each other’s tightly, and neither had to speak. It was a beautiful moment, one they both clung to in dire times, as tightly as they had to each other. In that moment, Bree understood Cyrin more than ever before, and it hurt a little bit.

“Wait.” Bree looked up from where she had been absentmindedly staring at where Cyrin’s scar was hidden. “You have  _ two  _ soulmates?!?”

The woman laughed, loud and unexpectedly to both of them. “It’s uncommon, but not unheard of. Some people have even more.” Cyrin cocked her head at the young halfling. “What did you think the words on your neck were?”

Bree stared at her house mother. Cyrin stared back.

“ _ WHAT?!? _ ”

“You didn’t—oh goodness, Bree, I thought you saw them!”

“Where on my neck?  _ Where on my neck?! _ ”

“Calm down, let me find a mirror.”

“You calm down! I don’t—”

Bree fell abruptly silent as Cyrin thrusted a small mirror into her hands. After a deep breath, she lifted it to her face.

“...Oh.” It wasn’t as visible as she’d feared. Rather, the words started behind her ear and trailed down the side of her neck towards her shoulder, as if pointing to the other mark. It was nearly impossible to read it at this angle, but the writing was neat and careful. Elegant. As she tried to decipher it, she heard Cyrin from behind her. “It says,  _ It’s you. You finally found me _ .”

“Oh,” Bree said again, unable to look away. She felt warmth run through her veins. It was beautiful, both of them were beautiful. She could never ask for anything more.

Without warning, she dropped the mirror, which hit the ground with a loud clatter but did not crack, and yanked her oversized sleep-shirt over her head. Cyrin watched with horrified amusement as Bree, in her haste, nearly got caught in the sleeves of her own shirt. “Child, what  _ are  _ you doing?”

“What if I have more soulmates?” Off went the leggings. “I need to look!” Bree frantically scanned herself from the top down. Nothing more on her arms, nothing on her chest. Her abdomen—

There. Right above the band of her underwear, branding her right hip.  _ You need one more?  _  The girl squealed in amazement, unable to contain herself. Three. Three people to love, to love her. She hadn’t realized it, but the mark was right; she thought yes, soulmate, of course. Bree turned towards Cyrin and grinned, unable to find words of her own as her hand laid on her newest discovery protectively. 

“Oh,  _ Bree _ ,” Cyrin breathed, looking not at Bree’s hip, but at her legs. The halfling followed her gaze on instinct until she was staring at her left leg. Her inner thigh was adorned with loopy penmanship that read,  _ Thanks! They’re my favorite.  _ A birthmark Bree had always hated was now in the perfect position to dot the ‘i’.

Four soulmates. All at once, she was certain that this was it, as real and tangible as anything. There were four people out there, right now, waiting for her, and Bree tried to imagine her writing on others’ skin, her slanted script inked into someone’s wrist, or hip, or chest. For half a second, Bree forgot everything she had been taught about soulmates as she basked in the false inevitabilities that were etched into her skin. Love, belonging, hope, adventure, all right there staining her dark pigment and decorated by her freckles and marks. Bree looked down at her body, at the words on her skin, placed as if they were always meant to be there, cradling her and comforting her with their very existence and Bree knew, without a doubt, that she had never been so beautiful.


End file.
